Entrance Song (2)

Last week I outlined the various options and sources given by the Church for the Entrance Song. This week I’d like to focus on the option of the congregation singing a short refrain alternating with psalm verses sung by a cantor or the choir.

There are at least two benefits to the Entrance Song taking the form of a “responsorial psalm”: (1) the dialogical nature of the Mass is expressed at the outset of the liturgy, and (2) so that we can pray with our heart, lips and eyes simultaneously. The liturgy is a dialogue first because it is the saving work of God. God initiates the communication in Christ, and we respond…in Christ. In fact the divine human dialogue is personified and embodied in Jesus Christ. Jesus is both God’s Word to us, and humanity’s fullest expression of itself to God. That’s why the psalms are so important. They are the inspired Word of God, but they are also lyric expressions of the deepest human experience. And so the Church continues to worship with the psalms from the Hebrew bible.

The content of the psalms is important, but so is the alternating form that we call “responsorial.” We often sing the Psalm after the First Reading in the responsorial manner as an interpretive “lens” through which we can interpret the other readings. But the responsorial mode is also ideal for use during processions—at the beginning of Mass, as the gifts of bread and wine are brought forward, and during Communion. Every liturgical procession is a symbol of our journey of faith, and we are to unite ourselves spiritually to this ritual movement. To do that we have to use all our sensory faculties: our voices, our ears, our eyes, and—on those wonderful occasions when there is sweet-smelling incense—our noses! The refrains that we call antiphons are perfect vehicles for uniting ourselves with the action of ritual processions, even when we are standing still or kneeling.

Another benefit of singing responsorial psalms is that we can easily memorize the antiphons, and take them with us into our daily life and prayer. St. John Chrysostom admonished his followers:

“Do not sing the refrain out of routine, but take it as a staff for the journey. Each verse can teach us much wisdom.... I exhort you therefore not to leave here empty-handed but to gather these refrains like pearls, to keep them ever with you to meditate on them, to sing them all to your friends and wives. And if disquiet invades your soul, if covetousness, anger or any other passion upsets your soul, sing them with perseverance. In this way we shall enjoy great peace in this life, and in the next eternal blessedness through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The antiphons sung at Mass can indeed prayers known “by heart,” which we may find ourselves singing throughout the week at prompting of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, whenever we enter a church, the song may rise up within us, “Within your temple we recall your loving kindness, O Lord our God," or “Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time and forever.”

Whenever we receive the Lord in Holy Communion and go out to proclaim his goodness by our daily lives, we can invite everyone we encounter to “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”